2 members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot detained

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

In this handout photo taken on Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017 and released on Monday, Aug. 7, 2017 by Zona.media, Maria Alyokhina and Olga Borisova, members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot, hold flares and a banner on the bridge nearby outside the prison colony in Yakutsk, Russia, Monday, Aug. 7, 2017. Film director Oleg Sentsov of Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, was convicted of conspiracy to commit terror attacks by a Russian military court in 2015 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. (AP Photo/ Zona.media via AP)

MOSCOW (AP) — Two members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot were detained Monday after rallying for the release of a Ukrainian filmmaker outside his Siberian prison.

During Sunday's protest in Yakutsk where Oleg Sentsov is serving his sentence, the band members unfurled a banner on a nearby bridge that read "Free Sentsov!"

Longtime Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina tweeted that she and Olga Borisova were detained early Monday and were awaiting a court hearing.

Mediazona, a website focusing on court and legal news that Alyokhina and another band member helped set up, released a video showing police stopping the car in which the two women were traveling and asking the women to follow them to the police station.

A Russian military court convicted Sentsov, who comes from the Crimean Peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, of conspiracy to commit terror attacks and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

Sentsov, who made two short movies and the 2012 feature film "Gamer," denied the charges, which he and his supporters denounced as political punishment for his opposition to Crimea's annexation.

The U.S. and the EU have criticized his conviction and called for his release, and numerous cultural figures in Russia and abroad have urged the Russian government to free him.

Pussy Riot is a loose collective and most of its members perform anonymously. The balaclava-clad women rose to prominence with their daring outdoor performances critical of President Vladimir Putin and Russia's ruling elite.

An impromptu "punk prayer" at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior that derided the ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin got them into trouble in 2012.

Three band members were convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" for the stunt. Alyokhina and another member, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, spent nearly two years in prison.